


Sight/Mind

by bramblePatch



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Crazy Murder Clown, Gen, Horror, Sober Gamzee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-02
Updated: 2011-03-02
Packaged: 2017-10-16 01:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bramblePatch/pseuds/bramblePatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gamzee finally manages to track down Karkat and Sollux in the depths of the lab.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sight/Mind

Karkat doesn't even know where they are, anymore, but he's fairly sure that Gamzee shouldn't have been able to track them here. They cut through Sollux's room to get here, after all, and there's no way the indigo-blooded troll should have been able to follow them through the transportalizer. Maybe it was pure bad luck that Gamzee had managed to find another way here; maybe Vriska has become just so lucky that she's begun to passively leach it from everyone else on the meteor rather than just stealing it when she's actively in combat.

It doesn't really matter now, though, as the two of them are cornered - literally cornered with the juncture of two smooth walls at their backs and the murderous clown in front of them - and wondering how he got there won't make Gamzee go away. Karkat pushes Sollux behind him, and he has to envy his friend's blindness. It won't make Sollux end up any less dead, of course, but at least he doesn't have to see the scratches and smears of blood, doesn't have to see the way that Gamzee's usually vacant eyes have become a little too sharp and bright.

Karkat wonders, given that there's no way in hell either of them are getting out of this alive, if he's really doing Sollux any favors in trying to protect the blind troll. Maybe it would be kinder to let his friend die quickly. Maybe he just doesn't have the nerve to watch Sollux die again.

His hand shifts on the grip of a sickle, but it's useless, the blade pinned to the wall with the blunt mass of a club, with more strength than Karkat realized the other had. Gamzee leans in until their faces almost touch, until in Karkat's vision, the smears of errant paint and blood all blur together and then there's only the hard yellow of Gamzee's eyes. Karkat had thought he was terrified when he read Gamzee's text, but that's nothing compared to the low, almost husky sound of his voice. "Tell me, best bro, what's be your position on miracles?"

Karkat glares back - if there's one thing Karkat can do under pressure, it's glare - and Gamzee's face twists in rage. "I SAID, WHAT'S YOUR MOTHERFUCKING POSTION ON MOTHERFUCKING MIRALCES, KARKAT?" As he yells, Karkat cowers a little, hating himself as he does so - hah, Karkat hating himself, what else is new - and he can feel Sollux's horns digging into his back as he crowds the corner.

"You know, I think he probably heard you the first time."

Gamzee turns so quickly that he smacks Karkat in the side of the head with one of his horns - Karkat isn't even sure how that happens; Gamzee has pretty big horns but it's not like they stick out way to the sides like Tavros' did. Karkat shakes his head slightly to clear it, peering past the clown, hoping that somehow what he sees will not match up with what he heard. But no, of course, it's Terezi standing there on the other side of the room, hands folded over the top of a dragon-headed cane, and Karkat feels for a moment as if someone, somehow, has replaced his mutant blood with ice water.

"What the fuck, Terezi, get out of here!" he shouts, and finds that Gamzee's inattention has freed his weapon. He tries to bring the sickle to bear, and the club snaps out again, this time catching Karkat's wrist against the wall instead of his blade. Karkat chokes out a string of foul language, vision momentarily tinted red and white with pain as he feels the bones of his wrist shift and crack under the pressure.

"Shut up," Gamzee says, leaning in beside Karkat's ear, his voice somewhere between a growl and a purr. Slowly he looks up again, over his shoulder at Terezi, and roars, "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" and Karkat's ears ring with the sound of Gamzee's voice.

Across the room, Terezi's grin full of sharp teeth and her glassy red eyes are both very wide, and Karkat kind of regrets ever complaining about her being creepy while she was wearing her glasses. The effect without the pointy red lenses is a thousand times worse.

"I mean, you kind of have to let people get a word in... turnwise," she continues, as if Karkat hadn't spoken (and despite the appreciable levels of mortal terror that are currently effecting him, Karkat has to roll his eyes at the verbal artifact of her terrible flirtation with that terrible human guy). "Unless you're just toying with them before you kill them, of course, but I think you'll find that strategy won't hold up in the long term. You'll run out of people to kill."

"So what, you're going to stop me?" Gamzee asks, tilting his head to one side in a way that would be almost comical if he wasn't moments away from murdering one of his closest friends. "Are you going to BRING A MOTHERFUCKING SUBJUGGLATOR TO JUSTICE, CHICA?" His attention is on Terezi now; if not for the club crushing his wrist into the wall, Karkat would think that the clown had forgotten he was there. Karkat wonders if Gamzee has forgotten that Sollux is there, behind him. He wonders if it would make any difference - even if Sollux could sneak away now, it's not as if the freshly-blinded troll would be able to find his way out of the room unassisted.

"What, is there one around?" she asks idly, and Karkat wants to beg her to shut up, to run, but he can't seem to figure out how to make the words form around the terror and the pain in his wrist. If she can smell or hear or whatever his distress, she makes no sign. Casually, she wanders into the middle of the room, her cane tapping softly against the slick metal floor. "Don't get me wrong, Gamzee, you're off to a good start, but you've acknowledged your heritage for what, two hours now? Your enthusiasm is great, but..."

"But what?" Gamzee hisses. Quiet Gamzee is definitely more frightening than loud Gamzee, Karkat decides.

"But it's pretty clear you don't have any idea what you're doing!" Terezi replies. "I mean, you just asked if I was going to bring a subjugglator to justice, and that doesn't even make any sense! It's like asking if I'm going to drown a seadweller."

Jegus, Karkat wonders, why won't she shut up? Why won't she run? Does she really think she can manipulate Gamzee back to some semblance of sanity?

"WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE TALKING TO?" Wait, no, loud Gamzee's worse than quiet Gamzee. Karkat involuntarily draws back again, earning himself a fresh wave of pain from his pinned wrist and an irritated grumble from Sollux, who shifts and drops into a crouch behind him.

"I think I'm talking to a highblood who needs a proper legiscalator to help him figure out where to direct his wrath," Terezi says with a smirk, "so he doesn't waste his time on stupid lowbloods and mutants when there's a back-stabbing blueblood who's been running around breaking all the rules. All of them. Really, Gamzee, I know Karkat's amusing when he's freaked out, but he's small time."

"So now you're all up in telling me how to do my job?"

"I'm just trying to help," she says brightly.

"I DON'T NEED NO HELP FROM NO MOTHERFUCKING TEAL SHIT STAIN!" Gamzee turns to advance on her, raising the club in his hand, and Karkat nearly collapses in surprise as his wrist is released. As Gamzee moves, Terezi's eyes narrow and her nostrils flare, just slightly.

"Now, Karkat!" she shouts, the indolent teasing gone all out of her voice and replaced with urgency.

For a long, horrible, fraction of a moment, Terezi's words make no sense to Karkat, and then from behind him, Sollux is fumbling for Karkat's good hand and pressing the dropped sickle into it. "Go, you useless grubsucker," the blind boy snarls, and, weapon in hand, Karkat finds that the idea of doing something once again makes sense in his fear-addled thinkpan.

Karkat takes off at a sprint, but by the time he catches up Gamzee has reached Terezi's position and grabbed her by one arm, using his other hand to beat her about the head and torso with his club, as she tries ineffectually to block the blows with her cane. Karkat throws himself onto Gamzee's back, and the crazed clown stumbles a little under the unexpected weight, releasing his grip on Terezi.

Karkat's not sure how it happens, what order things happen in or even who did what (although he supposes that it must have been him who struck the blow that really counts, as he's the one with the bladed weapon), but a moment later, he's pulling Gamzee's limp frame off of Terezi, who sits up slowly and spits out a mouthful of teal.

"What happened?" Sollux demands, hesitating in the corner. "Is it over? Is everyone all right?"

Karkat drops to his knees beside Terezi, dropping the bloody sickle and wrapping his good arm - the one without the broken wrist - around her shoulders to support her. "Are you all right?" he asks, echoing Sollux's sentiment because he doesn't seem to be functioning on a level to come up with his own. Terezi slowly regards the indigo-soaked front of her own shirt, and reaches up a hand to wipe the splatter from her face.

"Ick," she says weakly. "Sour grape." Karkat stares at her for a long moment, unsure of just how angry he ought to be, and then dissolves into laughter.


End file.
